Cracks Show In Iraq Embargo

A French group said on Thursday they had received the green light to fly a chartered airliner to Baghdad on Friday in the latest challenge to United Nations sanctions against Iraq.

Besides France, Iceland, Yemen, Syria and Russia are also planning flights to Baghdad in a row over the extent of a ban on flights to Iraq imposed for its invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

In Baghdad Thursday, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told a visiting Jordanian delegation that the U.N. sanctions are crumbling.

"These signs are the beginning of the collapse of the embargo," Aziz said. "America might have its opinion, but it cannot impose its will on all."

A spokeswoman for the organizers said the flight, due to carry French politicians and artists, had obtained the required authorizations, including those from countries along the route.

A French Foreign Ministry spokesman said Paris had not yet sent the required notification of the flight to the U.N. sanctions committee.

A first French plane flew to Baghdad a week ago, and Paris notified the committee only hours before take-off.

A Royal Jordanian airliner landed in Baghdad on Wednesday, the first Arab flight to Iraq in 10 years. Yemen is to send a plane carrying humanitarian aid on Friday.

France and Russia say U.N. Security Council resolutions do not ban passenger flights provided their cargo is inspected. The United States and Britain say the flights need to be approved by the U.N. sanctions committee.

Organizers of the planned French flight said they faced unspecified pressure and intimidation to drop their plans, and had to provide documents and information not usually required for charter flights.

Among some 100 people on board the flight will be former French Socialist Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson, French parliamentarians from across the political spectrum, doctors, artists and members of non-governmental organizations.

The trip is organized by three groups called the International Coordination for the Lifting of the Embargo, Third World Co-development, and World Children-Human Rights.

The Security Council reached a compromise agreement on yet another challenge to sanctions against Iraq that had threatened a $15.9 billion payout to Kuwait's oil company from a fund to compensate Gulf War victims.

France, Russia and China agreed to let the payment go through at Thursday's meeting of the U.N. Compensation Commission in Geneva as long as the United States and Britain support a reduction in the amount of money that the fund receives from the U.N. oil-for-food program.

The three countries, who are Iraq's strongest supporters on the Security Council, had sought to delay the payment to the Kuwait Petroleum Co., saying such a large award to a corporation was unconscionable at a time when Iraqis are suffering from decade-old sanctions.

Currently, 30 percent of every dollar Iraq earns through thprogram is diverted to the fund to compensate victims of Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The bulk of the remainder is used to buy humanitarian goods for ordinary Iraqis suffering under sanctions.

The compromise deal, which was agreed to Wednesday by the full 15-member council, calls for the percentage to be reduced to 25 percent for the six-month period that begins Dec. 6. The excess money, which would amount to about $1 billion over a year under current oil prices, would be targeted for humanitarian projects.

The agreement comes against the backdrop of increasingly bold attempts by Iraq's friends on the council -- France in particular -- to push the envelope on sanctions in Baghdad's favor, much to the consternation of an increasingly isolated United States.

The flights have long been a gray area in the council, with France and Russia saying that the committee need only be notified of proposed flights. The United States and Britain say the committee must actually approve the flight.

"What you're seeing," said Raad Alkadiri, an analyst with the Petroleum Finance Co. in Washington, "is people having to make decisions based on what their priorities are, and the U.S. priority is to keep Iraq contained while Saddam (Hussein) is in power."

"If that requires political compromises on certain aspects of policy, you're going to see the U.S. make those compromises," he said.

At an OPEC summit in Caracas, Venezuela, Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Riyadh Al-Qaisi derided the decision to allow the Kuwaiti claim to go through, saying the United Nations should release Iraqi funding so it can purchase food and humanitarian aid.

"If this has been a bargain for getting through, for slipping through, the $16 billion for Kuwait ... it's a ridiculous bargain," Al-Qaisi said.

As for the reduction in Iraq's contributions to the compensation fund, he asked, "What difference will 5 percent make? ... It's nothing."

French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte said Wednesday that France's main goal in its proposals on both the compensation committee and with its flights was to forge a new consensus within the council to persuade Iraq to accept U.N. weapons inspectors.

He denied that the French flight had done the opposite, as claimed by the United States, saying France was hoping its new proposal on flights would unite the council behind a common flight position.